By Mohamed Olad Hassan
Wednesday, May 09, 2007
The demolition of stalls selling tea, vegetables and other small goods by the roadside left piles of corrugated metal sheets and wooden planks.
"The campaign is aimed at ending illegal businesses built on the streets to help police perform security patrols and to revive the lost image of the capital," said Mohamed Dheere, a former warlord who was recently named mayor of Mogadishu.
Dheere said the stalls were built illegally and without official approval. But this war-ravaged country was without an effective central government for more than a decade, forcing residents to support themselves in any way possible.
The current administration is trying to assert control after quelling a ferocious insurgency that killed more than 1,000 people since March.
The militants, who are linked to an Islamic group that ruled Mogadishu for six quiet months last year, reject any secular government and vow to fight until Somalia becomes an Islamic state.
"We are happy to see the law and order returning, but in the meantime we need to run our businesses," said Saa'id Muqtar Ahmed, a 25-year-old welder who was carrying the remnants of his destroyed stall on his back.
Samsam Sheik Abdullahi, a mother of four whose tea kiosk was torn down, said she has no idea how she will earn money now.
"My husband died three years ago," she said. "This will lead my family into financial troubles, I have nowhere to turn."
In March, troops from neighboring Ethiopia used tanks and attack helicopters to crush a growing insurgency linked to the Council of Islamic Courts, a hard-line religious movement that had controlled Mogadishu and much of southern Somalia for six months in 2006.
The group was driven from power in December by Somali and Ethiopian soldiers. The U.S. had accused the Islamic group of having ties to Al Qaeda.
The militants reject any secular government and vow to fight until Somalia becomes an Islamic state. The government declared victory in late April, but the militants have vowed to take back the city.
Somalia has been mired in chaos since 1991, when warlords overthrew dictator Mohamed Siad Barre then fought each other.
The western city of Baidoa, where the interim parliament is based, was dubbed the "City of Death" in the 1990s amid a searing drought and famine.
Source: AP, May 09, 2007